Nothing like a case of blog writer’s block on a Tuesday night to send me in search of an advice column to dive into. You folks already know I love a good Dear Abby, but did you know I’m quite fond of Ask Amy as well?
Recently, Amy ventured into the exciting world of polyamory. No, no, no, she didn’t recruit a well hung bull to join her and her husband in the bedroom (as far as I know), but one of her readers asked a question about topic, and she answered, which is as close to a gang bang as an advice columnist usually gets (I think).
Dear Amy: My son and his wife have been married for almost 10 years.
Recently, his wife explained to me that they are polyamorous.
I did not really know what this was. She explained it and said that she wants to be honest with everyone.
I was in total shock.
After they left, I thought about what she’d told me.
I love them both. I want them to be happy. They were married in her church, and I do not understand this.
I want to be a part of their lives, but I do not know that I can cope with them bringing other intimate partners to our family gatherings, which is one of the things she says she would like to do.
I don’t know anyone who has experienced this. How can I keep my relationship with my son? My daughter-in-law wants open and honest acceptance. She says they have the right to live their lives the way they want to. But do I have any rights to what I am feeling about all of this?
I am in shock and trying to process this.
Your advice?
For those unfamiliar with the term Amy explains that; “A polyamorous relationship is one that has more than two partners, where, for instance, a couple will bring another adult into their intimate life as a partner.“
Lacking expertise in the field, Amy consulted Elisabeth Sheff, Ph.D., author of “When Someone You Love is Polyamorous”, who suggested that the concerned writer take ‘smaller steps’ to get to know the new third wheel in her son’s marriage.
For instance, instead of meeting for the first time at grandma’s 90th birthday or Passover dinner, meet the son, daughter-in-law, and their partners on Zoom for a chat, in the park for a walk, on the porch for cup of coffee, or eventually a restaurant for a regular dinner a couple of times. This allows you to establish a connection, chat with less pressure, and talk about boundaries before plunging into a big family gathering, which is already kind of stressful, even if it is fun.”
I think that’s spot-on advice. A grandparent’s 90th birthday party would indeed be a bad time to introduce your family to your new partner. If grandma is turning 90 this year it means she was born in the 1930s. They didn’t have polyamory in the 30s because it was the Great Depression, and the country was too sad to get an erection. I can’t blame them either, because as much fun as a threeway can be, it’s very hard to feel sexy after standing in a bread line all day as Wall Street executives plunge to their deaths from the skyscrapers around you. Hooverville shanties are probably among the least erotic domiciles in American history — they make the crack apartment where Michael Douglas’ daughter gets banged in Traffic look like a suite at the Wynn. And I don’t know about you, but those pictures of dust bowl families trudging across the heartland with dirt and stank smeared all over their bodies are enough to make my erection wilt on the spot. With that in mind it would probably be difficult to explain to grandma and her surviving friends from the Silent Generation that “this is Roy, he’s been joining us in the bedroom for a few months now, and we thought it would be nice for him to attend one of your last birthday parties”, without a lot getting lost in translation.
Frankly it seems like a raw deal for the new third wheel too. You get into polyamory because you’re into MMF threeways and all of a sudden you’re in the stationary aisle of a CVS looking for the perfect card to say, “Happy birthday, we’ve never met before, but your grandson pleases me orally while his wife penetrates him with a rubber toy.” It’s a raw deal and everyone knows it. After all, you got into this thing because you like to cum, not because you want to watch some old bag spend 3 minutes getting spit all over the cake while she tries to blow the candles out.
This is why I will never truly understand polyamory. I get swinging and wife swapping and all the other shit. That makes perfect sense to me. People want to find new and exciting ways to get themselves off. Roger that.
Polyamory on the other hand seems like a massive pain in the ass. It’s an entire extra relationship, which means extra stories about someone’s boring ass problems at work, extra Christmas presents to buy, an extra person hogging the sheets, an extra person stinking up the bathroom every time they take a nice big shit, and of course an extra person dragging you to a birthday party for some dinosaur who probably won’t make it til the end of the year.
To be clear; this is not an indictment of people with alternative sexual lifestyles, it’s simply a suggestion that you not ruin otherwise delightful group sex by cutting the proceedings short “because we have to be at Uncle Tony and Aunt Joan’s 60th anniversary party in an hour.” By all means, get out there and fuck, suck, and fill every hole with every available phallic object, just don’t go and fuck up a perfectly good orgy lifestyle with arguments about which of three families the trio should spend Thanksgiving with.
Meathead Media 